Marguerite’s Desires

video, hd, 14 min, colour, sound, 2017

Marguerite: Annika Scharm

camera: Kamen Stoyanov, sound: Sara Pinheiro

Marguerite’s Desires is a video about the French Feminist Marguerite Durand (1864-1936). The work makes a connection between two places founded by Durand: Le Cimetière des Chiens (a pet cemetery) and the Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand in Paris. Durand, a former actress at the Comédie-Française, became interested in politics after the International Feminist Congress in 1896. She then founded the journal La Fronde (The Sling), a journal solely written and edited by women.

Marguerite had a lion, which she lovingly called “Tiger,” which also brought her publicity during her political campaign. In 1899, she founded the pet cemetery Cimetière des chiens in Asnières-sur-Seine, close to Paris. An animal lover but also a pragmatist, she founded the cemetery for purely hygienic reasons. In 1932, she donated her extensive collection of journals and literature to the government, which founded and formed the Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand. It was the very same place where Durand died of a heart attack in 1936.

exhibition:

Black Quarry: Form(les)s Dwellers of Life. Corner College Zurich, 2017